Hi,
I’m looking for advice on compatibility with Raspberry Pi for Plexamp or alternatives to the Raspberry Pi that would suit my needs. I have a collection of around 500 albums in AIFF format and want a reliable, budget-friendly solution to stream music from my iPhone in the car (CarPlay), on the road and MacBook Pro while traveling. My main priority is something that functions without lag. Any suggestions? Specific Pi specs I should consider?
I’m not sure if you are asking about a Pi client or server.
Generally the phone is not the server.
However, anything is possible.
Are you talking about using a raspberry pi as a Plex Media Server?
Or do you already have a Plex Media Server setup and you are asking about using a Pi as a music player?
Sorry, indeed, the iPhone and MacBook Pro are just streaming clients using Plexamp.
The Pi or an alternative solution will host the music and run Plex Media Server.
I don’t think that a Pi server will be able to use Plex’s Sonic Analysis, which is pretty great for music. I would look for some kind of cheap Windows desktop or laptop hardware. Almost anything will do since you are not processing video. If you or any friends have a PC junk pile, your server might be waiting for you in there. Or if you currently have a desktop computer, there is no reason it cannot also be your Plex server. After all, you won’t be home playing games and using Plexamp in your car at the same time.
I definitely want to use the Sonic Analysis feature. Does it really not work with a Pi? Or does it just take longer? The analysis only needs to be done once, right?
Plex says:
Unfortunately, the neural network libraries required for the sonic analysis are not currently available for ARM-based processors. That means that this feature is currently only supported for Plex Media Server running on x86/x86-64 processors (e.g. Intel and AMD). (The exception here are macOS systems running on the M1 chip, which can still make use of the functionality because of their Rosetta 2 emulation capabilities.)
Analysis only needs to be done once, correct.
There may be a way to do the analysis on a different system and then copy the data to a Pi server but I certainly would not want to live that way.
See what you can scare up in terms of x86 hardware. If you don’t have access to any junk you can probably get a suitable mini PC or even a laptop for <$150.
You do not want to use the oldest toaster you can find, though. Some people take pride in running Plex on an antique Xeon system they found in a dumpster behind a mental hospital, but newer systems use a lot less power. (For Plex, Intel Gen 7 is kind of where the sweet spot begins because you can get good video transcoding capabilities from that point on.)
Just for music and Sonic Analysis, would an Intel NUC with an Intel Celeron N3050 (NUC5CPYH) be sufficient?
For music only that would probably be OK. It’s a very slow processor so Sonic Analysis will take forever… But it should work.
If you can find anything faster in your budget the speed will be appreciated. And if you can find anything with Quick Sync video that gives you the option to experiment with video content later if your interests change. (You can use Plex for video without Quick Sync but it becomes much more complicated as you need to factor in the capabilities of the server and client, whereas Quick Sync allows anything to play on any screen.)
Here is an N100 mini PC for $154. This is MUCH faster than the NUC5CPYH, which is $130.
